Nothing much to report yet. Gov't hasn't even issued an alert yet, which means 72 hours stand-to, then a tropical storm watch, which means TS conditions COULD be felt within 36 hours (or maybe 48, but I'm pretty sure it's 36) and then a TS warning which means TS conditions WILL be felt within 24 hours. Sometimes they double them up and issue a tropical storm warning AND a hurricane watch at the same time. Hurricane warning is like when the sirens go off in the midwest. A twister has been spotted, take cover NOW. Hurricane warning means you have 24 hours or less until the effects are felt, but that also means you'll be in the middle of Tropical Storm-force conditions.

Plans have been set in motion both at home and at work. I'm anticipating a lot of hours this weekend, whether I'm at work or not! I don't want to sound too cavalier, but I don't think we're going to do too badly with this storm. Hopefully those don't become 'famous last words' because there's the potential for this to truly be a shitstorm of magnificent proportions. Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best is the mode of operation this weekend.

Tomorrow, or maybe even early this morning the gov't will issue the alert, and then start to progress through the watches and warnings based upon the actual track of the storm. I'll update the little flag up in the corner as they're released.

On a completely different note, the sky was brilliantly lit up by stars tonight. There's still a lot of light pollution just from the fact that people live here, but you could clearly see the Milky Way tonight. The nights AFTER Ivan, before a lot of people started firing up generators and turning lights back on was by far the prettiest nights for stargazing I've *EVER* seen, period.